News

The number of results from a Google search of “Elena Kagan” plus the word “gay” more than doubled from 722,000 on Monday, when President Obama nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court, to 1,950,000 on Tuesday night, when Politico.com reported two friends said she is not gay.

Gay legal activists feel they got a good hearing from U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro May 6, in the first federal district court hearing to examine the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

New York State’s highest court ruled this week that a non-biological mother has the right to seek custody and visitation of the child she and her ex-civil union partner planned for and created together. But the decision falls short of what many LGBT civil rights activists had hoped for.

Wording is everything in politics. What is not said can sometimes be more important than what is said, and what is said can be subjected to a multitude of interpretations that transform a simple sentence into a powerful new expectation.

Such has been the case with this statement, made by President Barack Obama in January during his State of the Union speech: “This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country.”

He did not say that he and Congress would “repeal the law this year.” He said he would work with Congress on it this year.

It is the end of April. Spring has sprung and all hell is breaking out in Washington, D.C. Not wishing to be left behind in this biennial political morass, LGBT activists have stepped up their pleas to be heard.

When President Obama signed a memorandum this month, calling for an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians in hospital visitation policies, many unmarried LGBT people assumed that meant hospitals would no longer be able to bar them from being with their partners during a time of medical crisis.

But not all presidential memoranda are created equal: Some go into effect immediately; some require months of rule-making bureaucracy and are subject to public comment.

In an historic move, President Obama this month nominated an openly gay person, Edward DuMont, to a federal appeals court judgeship—the first such openly gay nomination at that level. He also becomes the first openly gay man to be nominated to a federal judgeship.

A sidelines skirmish over document production in the Proposition 8 lawsuit rages on this month, forcing the continued delay of closing arguments and, ultimately, a decision on the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage. And Ted Olson, the well-known conservative attorney leading the litigation against the ban, accused the ACLU and Yes on 8 proponents of “delaying the progress” of the trial.

From the beginning of the Obama administration, the general attitude of the LGBT people was that things would be better for the community than they were under the administration of President George W. Bush. But even from the beginning, there were signs that protections for LGBT youth might not be better and that “safe schools” might not be a priority for the Department of Education (DOE).

By the time a lawsuit reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, the facts of the conflict are rarely in dispute. But Monday’s oral argument at the Supreme Court revealed a great deal of confusion over those very basic facts of the case.

The confirmation hearing Friday, April 16, for a well-known liberal nominee to a federal appeals court deteriorated quickly into a political battlefield. Republicans seemed intent on settling old scores.

A mainstream news organization has published a story identifying as gay a prominent public official who has never identified as such. The subject of the story is U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, reportedly one of President Obama’s leading contenders to fill the seat of retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

President Obama issued a surprise memorandum Thursday night, April 15, calling for an end to discrimination against LGBT people by hospital visitation policies that limit visitors to immediate family members.

The Obama administration’s proposal to reform the nation’s educational system includes no specific call for anti-bullying programs in schools, and no mention of protections for students from harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This is despite the fact that an openly gay man with considerable experience in combating such bullying heads the Department of Education (DOE) Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

A 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel dismissed the appeal of two groups opposing Proposition 8 in which the groups sought to stop a district court order that they turn over documents to Yes on 8 groups.

The three-judge panel said it lacks jurisdiction at this point to review U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s order that the groups—which are not a party to the Perry v. Schwarzenegger lawsuit.

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A Closer Look

Renown Supreme Court advocate Ted Olson remembers the first time he had a chance to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court: He didn’t take it. It was a First Amendment case about billboards in San Diego. Olson had been practicing law for 15 years, he had represented his clients from the start, and […]

Breaking News

The U.S. Supreme Court put off until at least this Friday (January 16) a decision on whether it will hear appeals challenging a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that said states can ban same-sex couples from marrying. Meanwhile, three judges of the Ninth Circuit issued a blistering dissent against the full appeals courts refusal to hear appeals from Idaho and Nevada, and a three-judge panel at the Fifth Circuit heard arguments from challenges to three state bans on Monday.

In a decision that will compel the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of bans against marriage for same-sex couples, a panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that it is not unconstitutional for a state to ban marriage licenses to same-sex couples or refuse to recognize marriage licenses such couples obtain from other states.

Maura Healey became the first openly gay person elected as a state attorney general, Sheila Kuehl won a hotly contested race in Los Angeles, Sean Maloney survived his U.S. House challenge, and Carl DeMaio may have won a squeaker in San Diego, but Mike Michaud lost his bid in Maine.

Media attention on Maine’s gubernatorial race was split Thursday between President Obama’s rally for U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s bid to become the first openly gay person elected governor of any state and the shake-out over pro-gay third party opponent Eliot Cutler’s announcement that his supporters should feel free to vote for someone else.

This year’s election night is likely to be an important one for the LGBT history books: Voters in Massachusetts are expected to elect the nation’s first-ever openly gay state attorney general, and voters in Maine could very well elect the nation’s first-ever openly gay governor. Here are 10 races to watch November 4.